Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Visual Latin-TOS Review

One of the questions that I am often asked is WHY? Why would you choose to teach your kids a "dead" language?

1. The main reason is that we have been studying the Latin and Greek root words for the past year, it's part of our curriculum .

2. I was asked to review Visual Latin and I was thrilled since it tied into our current curriculum so nicely. We were already using English from the Roots Up and Visual Latin just digs a little deeper.

3. My kids are often able to decipher a vocabulary or spelling word very easily since learning so many "root" words. 4. Makenzie is BEGGING me to let her go do Latin, that's always a good sign! 5. I wish I would have had the opportunity to take Latin in school, it would have helped me tremendously.

You may be wondering what is Visual Latin?

Visual Latin is an in-depth series of short video lessons, followed by practice exercises that teach the Latin language to anyone age 9 and up.

After receiving the DVD my kids were so excited that we jumped right in and did 2 lessons in 1 day. Our new Latin instructor is Dwane Thomas. Mr. Thomas has a lighthearted, fun and a tad bit quirky personality and this combined with short, easy to understand lessons makes this a pleasurable experience for the kids and myself included. Each lesson is broken into 3 easy sections and allowed us to practice what we learned on a corresponding worksheet.

Recommendations

Overall I recommend Visual Latin because of it's visual approach and it's easy to use which is very helpful to a busy homeschool mom. My son is in 4th grade and it seems just about perfect for him, my daughter is in 6th grade and has been jumping ahead and working extra lessons because she just wants more and is soaking it up like a little sponge. She has a friend that's taking Latin also and they have been speaking to each other in Latin and helping the each other with new words. I'm learning too and find the video very engaging and interesting.

Visual Latin is available on DVD or as a download and you can check out a sample lesson by clicking here.

Pricing

They also offer several different pricing options from FREE sample lessons up to $150 for a group/class CD, for more info go to Visual Latin. The homeschool family pricing is very affordable at $25-$30 depending on which series you need. To receive $10 off during checkout please use code OCT$10

If you would like to hear what my fellow TOS crew mates have to say about Visual Latin click here.

6 comments:

I've heard such good things about this program. We use a different (not so 'fun' ;) program that we like but this one looks like it would be more interesting for at least my ds (12 yo) who doesn't like Latin in the first place lol.

My homeschooling days are over, but I'm still interested in Visual Latin!!! I got an e-mail from Timberdoodle with a notice about the product, then looked at the sample lessons. It looks fantastic. And want an easy way to expand their vocabulary? Teach Latin and Greek roots. I think I'm going to buy this for me!